Gigabyte GeForce 8600GT 256MB

The Gigabyte GeForce 8600GT was warm to the touch, but this sub-$150 graphics card had offered blazing performance potential and top-notch overclocking capabilities for the G84 GPU and its GDDR3 memory. Selling for about $140 USD, the Gigabyte 8600GT is slightly more expensive than some of the other 8600GT graphics cards, but the price is justified by the factory-overclocked GPU and memory. If the overclocking and performance capabilities are not enough, the Gigabyte 8600GT is passively cooled using Silent-Pipe II technology, but this cooler still could be improved. The temperatures we experienced weren't damaging; however, we would have liked to see a lower die temperature. The GV-NX86T256D also includes Supreme Commander, but Linux users will need to wait a while before WINE is capable of handling this game.

The benchmarks show that the GeForce 8600GT is noticeably faster than the 8500GT, and with the sad performance-state of the fglrx driver, the 8600GT had outperformed the more-expensive Radeon X1950PRO 256MB in all of the benchmarks. The GeForce 8 Linux performance will also increase once NVIDIA releases a new Linux driver to correct their existing issues. Even though Gigabyte's GV-NX86T256D is more expensive than much of the 8600GT competition, this graphics card provides real value making up the difference and in our minds is certainly worth the $140 price tag. Whether you are looking for a mid-range graphics card to overclock or a GPU in a media PC (without XvMC), the Gigabyte GeForce 8600GT is one to add to your list and is taking home the Phoronix Editor's Choice Award.

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